The ACGME convened the Sponsoring Institution 2025 (SI2025) Task Force to develop a future vision for accredited institutional sponsors of graduate medical education (GME) programs. The ACGME is using the task force’s report to plan the evolution of institutional accreditation. While the ACGME’s Institutional Review Committee is not using this report in the current institutional accreditation process, the ACGME invites Sponsoring Institutions to study the report’s findings as part of their own planning process.

The context for GME continues to change rapidly. Sponsoring Institutions are challenged to respond to rapid transformations in the health care system and new developments along the continuum of medical education. In addition, many Sponsoring Institutions are forging clinical and non-clinical partnerships to ensure the success of their GME efforts. Forces both internal and external to the learning and working environment will require the GME community to redefine the role of the Sponsoring Institution.

With this imperative in mind, the SI2025 Task Force explored the role and performance of the future ACGME-accredited Sponsoring Institution. As part of this exploration, task force members traveled across the United States to gather information in regional listening sessions, and heard from more than 1,000 individuals regarding their projected view of the future of health care, GME, and Sponsoring Institutions.

After concluding its listening activities, the SI2025 Task Force identified eight categories of projected changes with 48 specific findings. The group also identified six concerns related to the profession of medicine and to professionalism. Three forces—democratization, commoditization, and corporatization—were seen as drivers of change that appear to be guiding the future of health care, and thereby shaping the conditions to which GME and Sponsoring Institutions will need to adapt.

On the basis of the reported findings, concerns and forces, the SI2025 Task Force recommended four ways the ACGME can prepare GME stakeholders for the future of health care and education in Sponsoring Institutions with new structures, functions, and outcomes. As the ACGME pursues the task force’s recommendations, feedback on the report is invited.

The ACGME appreciates the time and work of the SI2025 Task Force and thanks its members for contributing to this project.

John Duval, MBA, FACHE
ACGME (Co-Chair)

Lawrence M. Opas, MD
Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (Co-Chair)